Portable electronic devices, including mobile phones, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), and portable media players have become a near-ubiquitous part of daily life. As these devices evolve, more and more people are turning towards portable electronic devices that combine two or more of these functions into a single device (e.g., PDA phones or “smart” phones). The utility of these devices has made it increasingly likely that people who own them will rarely leave their homes without them.
One type of application that runs on many of the aforementioned portable electronic devices is an address book application. This address book application is typically used to store contact information, including telephone numbers, such that the owner of the portable electronic device is able to retrieve this contact information at will. However, the address book and other information on the portable electronic device is often accessible only to the person who owns the portable electronic device, since it is common for this type of device to be “locked” by the user to prevent unauthorized access.
Many portable electronic devices incorporate a password-lock feature, wherein a password must be entered before the device can be utilized. For example, on a typical password-locked mobile phone, any person who attempts to access information stored on the mobile phone will be presented with a password prompt and prevented from using the mobile phone until such a time as the correct password has been entered.
Typically, access to a locked portable electronic device is prevented by the use of a “screen lock”. Hence, to gain access to the address book, the user can enter a password to unlock the “screen lock”. However, there are situations when it would be desirable for someone who does not know the password to unlock a password-locked portable electronic device to be able to access at least some of the information on that portable electronic device. Currently, some PDAs and PDA phones display a ‘welcome screen’ that allows their owners to display information determined by the user when a device powers up, while maintaining the privacy of the other data on the device by requiring a password for access other information beyond that contained in the welcome screen. However, the owner of the device may not care to include identifying information or any other personal information on a device's welcome screen for many reasons including, for example, privacy concerns. Thus, there is a need for improved methods for allowing the owner of a portable electronic device to specify and customize information that can be accessed on a password-locked portable electronic device without entering the password.
Additionally, the portability and increasingly smaller sizes of portable electronic devices have the drawback of making them susceptible to loss. The design of most portable electronic devices is such that it is difficult or impossible to identify the owner of the device without extensive detective work, which is undesirable for a variety of reasons, including owner privacy concerns. Thus, there is also a need for improved methods to provide information to aid in the return of a lost portable electronic device to its rightful owner.